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Home > Oracle Database / Applications News > Oracle vs. SAP: The SOA factor |
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Meanwhile, SOA adoption is slow, but there sure is a lot of SOA planning going on, according to new survey results. SearchOracle.com surveyed 683 IT professionals who have a say in the IT decision making process at Oracle shops representing a wide variety of industries and found that 84% have not implemented SOA technology on any level. Of those, 48% said they plan to implement SOA within the next three years, while the other half of respondents said they didn't know if or when their companies would delve into the world of SOA. SOA planning tips For many of organizations like these, who's ahead of who with their SOA plans may not matter just yet, anyway. IT professionals planning for SOA should begin by putting down their pocketbooks and taking the time to determine exactly what business problems they want SOA to solve, according to analysts. "You start with the business problems, you look at your business processes, you figure out how to build services and then you start thinking about what to buy," aid Jason Bloomberg, a senior SOA and Web services analyst with Baltimore-based ZapThink LLC. "[Buying is] not the first step, it's the fourth or fifth step." Also, Bloomberg said, database management systems are key components of the SOA infrastructure, so it's important to use a DBMS that supports XML natively. Most DBMSs support XML reasonably well, he said, but it's a good idea for organizations to do product comparison to determine if they have the right skills in-house to make the most of the specific XML features found in each product.
Finally, people interested in SOA need to remember that SOA is not a product, it's an architectural approach. "Do not expect to buy SOA from any [one] vendor," Bloomberg said. "[SOA is] an approach that leverages heterogeneity, so if any vendor says, 'buy my stuff a you'll get a SOA in a box,' they're pulling the wool over your eyes. No vendor can say that truthfully." Some organizations, like the government offices of Jefferson County, Alabama, simply don't have the time or resources to begin an SOA development project. According to David Shockey, a systems analyst with Jefferson County, his group is too busy trying to replace legacy mainframe applications with less expensive off the shelf software, all while working within the confines of a tight budget. "SOA is really not taken into account into our decision making process," Shockey said. "Someday [we'll implement SOA], just not now. There are too many other priorities." Oracle, SAP and IBM race for SOA dominance SAP, with its NetWeaver strategy, is doing a better job than Oracle of demonstrating its SOA capabilities to customers, said Bloomberg. But, he added, SAP has SOA-related problems as well. "The company is going through a major [reorganization] with Shai Agassi's departure, so there's an open question as to their leadership and SOA vision," Bloomberg said. "They also struggle with being truly open, as they expect customers to run Enterprise Services on NetWeaver." Oracle, meanwhile, is busy contending with a massive software integration undertaking called Oracle Fusion -- the result of nearly 30 acquisitions over the past four years -- and promises to deliver a complete Java-based and SOA-enabled business applications stack beginning in 2008. This Fusion challenge for now is costing Oracle on the SOA mindshare front, according to Bloomberg. "SAP has had the edge [over Oracle] because they have a more solid enterprise services story. They're talking about services that are abstractions of their application functionality -- their core ERP and CRM capabilities," Bloomberg said. "But with Oracle, you have their SOA story, and you have their enterprise applications story, and you don't see them connected as well as SAP's." And then there's Big Blue. "IBM has the broadest and deepest SOA story of any vendor, with their solid software and professional services offerings as well as the depth of each across product lines and verticals," Bloomberg said. "They're everyone's number one competitor."
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